The city council of Cape Flattery, Washington holds a meeting to consider condemning the home of Ma and Pa Kettle, who live in ram-shackled poverty with their fifteen children. Before they can act, however, Mayor Dwiggins learns that Pa has won a brand-new, model house in the King Henry Tobacco Company slogan contest. When the city council attempts to give the Kettles the good news, however, they are attacked by the Kettle children. While Ma is thrilled, Pa is disappointed, as he had hoped to merely win a new tobacco pouch. Returning home from college, Tom Kettle, Ma and Pa's oldest son, meets magazine reporter Kim Parker, who is traveling to Cape Flattery to do a series of articles on the Kettles. The Kettles are quickly overwhelmed by all the electronic gadgets in their new "home of the future," including automatic doors, Murphy beds, console entertainment centers and infra-red stoves. Undaunted, the Kettles soon hold a house-warming party for the town, during which Pa is elected to the honorary chairmanship of the county fair. Upset at losing her chairperson title, Mrs. Birdie Hicks leaves the party and runs into Billy Reed, a traveling salesman. Billy gives her one of his calendars, and Birdie immediately recognizes the similarity between Billy's slogan and the one that won the Kettles their new home. With the help of her mother, Birdie telegraphs the tobacco company and accuses Pa of plagiarism. Meanwhile, Tom's courtship of Kim is interrupted when he is called to Seattle to present his new egg incubator to the Farmers' Bank. Later, after Pa gets sunburned while shaving under sun lamps, Ma lets him think he has scarlet fever in order to keep him from selling the new house. Responding to Birdie's telegrams, the tobacco company gives the Kettles a forty-eight hour eviction notice. Ma decides to fight the notice, but Pa goes home when he learns that he is merely suffering from sunburn. When the sheriff arrives to evict them, Ma and the children decide to stand and fight. An explosion then happens at the old Kettle place, and everyone thinks that Pa has been killed by dynamite. Later, at his memorial service, Pa arrives with a wagon-load of Indians, whom he has gathered to fight the authorities. It is of little matter, however, as Billy admits that he had borrowed the slogan from Pa. The Kettles then get to keep their new home, and Tom and Kim are married. During the wedding, Pa learns that he has won another slogan contest, with a trip to New York City as grand prize.
